Boris Johnson has insisted he did not pursue a “let it rip” strategy during the coronavirus pandemic.
Giving evidence to the Covid inquiry, he said he did offer counter arguments in order to challenge the consensus in meetings.
He argued his actions proved he worked to curb the virus, rather than allowing it to spread through the population. He also rejected the idea that he was slow to act when cases began rising again in the autumn of 2020. In his second day of testimony at the inquiry, he denied that he had been reluctant to lock down a second time because he was prepared to let older people die to keep the economy open.
In a tetchy exchange, he called the idea “rubbish” and insisted he had aimed to “save human life at all ages”.
Mr Johnson has faced nearly ten hours of questioning this week, for which he has reportedly prepared for hours with his government-funded inquiry lawyers, and has submitted a 233-page witness statement.
His first day of testimony on Wednesday was interrupted by protesters, with demonstrators outside the inquiry building on both days holding up pictures of lost loved ones and jeering his departure.
His second day of evidence focused on the autumn of 2020, when Mr Johnson has been accused of being too slow to reimpose restrictions after cases shot back up again.
In one exchange, he was shown extracts from the diary of Sir Patrick Vallance, the government’s chief scientific adviser of the time.
In an entry from October, Sir Patrick said Mr Johnson had argued for “letting it all rip,” quoting him as saying potential victims had “had a good innings” and “reached their time anyway”.
When the inquiry’s lead lawyer put it to him that these “secretly held” views had made him reluctant to reimpose restrictions in the autumn, he shook his head and could be heard saying “honestly” under his breath.
“The implication that you’re trying to draw from those conversations is completely wrong,” he replied. “My position was that we had to save human life at all ages”.
“If you look at what we actually did, never mind the accounts that you have culled from people’s jottings from meetings… if you look at what we actually did, we went into lockdown as soon as we could.
“I had to challenge the consensus in the meeting.”
Mr Johnson later said he regretted the “hurt and offence” some of his language had caused, before adding: “A lot of what has been reported is incorrect, and there are words that are described to me that I simply don’t recognise.
He explained that he spoke “in an unpolished way” because he wanted others to “speak freely”.
The former prime minister also told the inquiry:
- He “agonised” over whether to introduce a circuit breaker in autumn 2020 but decided a regional approach – or tier system – was “worth a try”
- The tier system was “divisive and difficult to implement” involving “laborious” negotiation over local financial support
- He was “desperate” to keep schools open in January 2021 but “it just wasn’t a runner” given schools were “terrific reservoirs” of the virus
- Media representations of Partygate – rule breaking events in Downing Street – were “a travesty of the truth” and “a million miles from reality”
- The controversy over Dominic Cummings’ journey to Barnard Castle was “a bad moment”
- Social distancing guidance was “logistically impossible” to follow at all times in No 10 given the number of meetings being held during the pandemic
- The world still needed answers about “the real origins of Covid”
Mr Johnson was also asked about Eat Out to Help Out, the government-sponsored discount scheme to encourage people to go back to restaurants after they reopened.
He said the measure was not seen as a “gamble” when introduced, and that he had not subsequently seen evidence that proved it “made a big difference” to the infection rate.
There has been conflicting evidence as to whether the scheme did propel the virus, and a surge of cases in the UK mirrored rises in other European countries, which did not have the scheme.
In previous hearings, the inquiry has been told that neither senior scientific advisers nor Matt Hancock, health secretary at the time, were told about the scheme before it was announced.
Mr Johnson said he was “perplexed” at the suggestion top advisers had been unaware of the plan, adding that it was not a secret and had been “discussed several times in meetings in which I believe they must have been present”.
‘Singing and obesity’
The inquiry also saw extracts from Sir Patrick’s diaries which included the line: “Wales very high – PM says ‘it is the singing and the obesity…I never said that’.”
Mr Johnson was not asked about the alleged remark about Wales, which appeared in a entry dated 11 September 2020.
The former prime minister was largely measured during the hearing but robustly defended himself against accusations he did not care about people’s suffering during the pandemic.
Becoming emotional, he recalled his time in intensive care after contracting Covid.
“I saw around me a lot of people who were not actually elderly – in fact, they were middle aged men and they were quite like me.
“And some of us were going to make it and some of us weren’t.
“I knew from that experience what an appalling disease this is… To say that I didn’t care about the suffering that was being inflicted on the country is simply not right.”
Mr Johnson’s successor Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is due to give evidence to the inquiry on Monday.
Becky Kummer, spokesperson for Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice UK, said Mr Johnson’s evidence showed he “failed to take the pandemic seriously in early 2020 leaving us brutally unprepared, and failed to learn from his mistakes meaning that the second wave had an even higher death toll than the first”.
“He delayed for fear of how it might impact his reputation with certain sections of the press…. there are many lessons from the pandemic that might save lives in the future, but one of them is undoubtedly that someone as self-serving as Boris Johnson is not fit for power.”
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